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User blog:Pinkguy the b0ss/Sonic 3
'' What's up my Shreks, it's DiamondMinerStudios, back again for yet another game review. This time I'm reviewing one of the most beloved entries in the Sonic series - Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Let's do this. After the 1991 launch of Sonic the Hedgehog, the massive success and popularity of 1992's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (which I haven't beaten as of this review - but I'll get to it some day, don't you worry), and the popular but financially unsuccessful Sonic CD (due to the Sega CD's low sales), Sega decided it was time to create the ultimate Sonic experience. More zones, better graphics, and better music, all while pushing the Genesis' hardware capabilities to the limit. The project got so huge that the game couldn't fit on a single Genesis cartridge, so to lower production costs, Sega decided to split the game in half. This resulted in the release of two games : Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. They wouldn't be completely seperate games, however, as Sega created Sonic & Knuckles cartridges with a unique lock-on technology, which allows you to connect your Sonic 3 cartridge on top of Sonic & Knuckles, combining them into one large, complete game : Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the true Sonic 3. The game wasn't quite as popular as Sonic 2, but it still achieved a large following and became one of the fan-favorite entries in the Sonic series. It didn't sell as well as previous Sonic games, but that was more than likely because when it came out in 1994, Donkey Kong Country came out on SNES, which took a huge bite out of Genesis sales as a whole. Consumers and fans alike had also lost faith in Sega due to the whole Sega 32X fiasco. Anyways, with that short history lesson out of the way, let's get into what these reviews are actually about. The.... review. (no shit sherlock) So, what do I think? Is Sonic 3 & Knuckles as good as everyone says, or is it not? Let's find out. Story It's nothing too complicated. Dr. Robotnik (aka Eggman / Baldy McNosehair) has been foiled again as his base of operations - the Star Wars-inspired Death Egg - comes crashing to the ground on Angel Island, the island home of Knuckles the Echidna which floats above the sea. Robotnik cons Knuckles into thinking Sonic and Tails are after the mystical Master Emerald : a giant emerald which keeps Angel Island afloat. Once Knuckles is distracted, Robotnik converts the local animals into robots and steals the Master Emerald, causing Angel Island to sink to the ocean. Sonic and Tails make their way to the island in pursuit of Robotnik, only to be stopped by Knuckles, who steals their Chaos Emeralds. Now Sonic and Tails have to stop Robotnik, who is planning to rebuild the Death Egg a la Return of the Jedi. Not a bad story in my opinion. It really boils down to the same basic idea as the previous Sonic games - Robotnik is being a dick, so Sonic's gonna kick his ass. I'd say it passes. Gameplay Just like the three previous Sonic games, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a side-scroller. Sonic can run, jump, and spindash in order to get around. The spindash in particular is a great addition to Sonic's moveset, and completely eliminates the issue from Sonic 1 where you had to backtrack to get up slopes (ok, I know Sonic 2 added the spindash, but I reviewed this game first, so FRICK YO-). The control is identical to the previous Sonic game I reviewed - D-pad moves, and all three buttons jump. Simple and intuitive, just how it should be. Sonic 3 & Knuckles emphasizes speed in addition to platforming (just like other Sonic games). One thing different from Sonic 1 in this regard is that Sonic 3&K removes the speed cap from that game (Sonic 2 also did this), allowing Sonic to accelerate to ridiculous speeds. This leads to a certain level structure - fast-paced platforming with the occasional burst of speed. I think it works well, allowing for a sense of speed in addition to you still feeling in control. Speaking of levels, they're are called "acts," with two making up a "zone." This game is divided into thirteen - Angel Island Zone, Hydrocity Zone, Marble Garden Zone, Carnival Night Zone, Ice Cap Zone, Launch Base Zone, Mushroom Hill Zone, Flying Battery Zone, Sandopolis Zone, Lava Reef Zone, Hidden Palace Zone, Sky Sanctuary Zone, and Death Egg Zone (phew). Each of these levels is distinct from each other, with new setpieces and enemies with each successive one. This prevents the game from becoming stale, being engaging until the very end. I must say, the level design is damn good. Similarly to Sonic 2 and most of Sonic 1, the levels are explorative enough to not be an overly-linear Crash Bandicoot-style dash from point A to point B, but straightforward enough to avoid becoming a clusterfuck that's confusing to play. The levels provide a nice amount of challenge that's not based on arbitrary reasons, leading to the levels being fun instead of unfair and aggravating.... With the exception of Sandopolis Zone. A combination of obnoxious enemies, annoying gimmicks, and a million different surprise deaths made this stage an absolute chore on my first few playthroughs. Act 2 is worse than Act 1, but that doesn't mean that Act 1 is off the hook. It's not the worst thing ever, and I can get through this zone with relatively few issues now, but that doesn't excuse the zone's relatively poor design. Whenever I play this game, I don't look forward to Sandopolis. In strong contrast to this zone, though, everything else is great. A particularly fun aspect of the gameplay is the shield powerups. There are three - the fire shield, which allows Sonic to do an airdash, the lightning shield, which serves as both a ring magnet and allows Sonic to double jump, and the bubble shield, which.... lets Sonic bounce like a ball. All of these shields - except the bubble one - are a fun change of pace from the normal moveset and help to increase the game's variety. The biggest improvement over previous Sonic games though is the save feature. Since this game is longer than all of the previous ones, I'm thankful that Sega finally decided to put a save feature on a Genesis Sonic game (I specify Genesis because I am aware Sonic CD had a save feature, but that was a Sega CD game). Instead of having to start the game from the beginning if you get a game over, you simply start from the beginning of the zone you're on. You can also earn continues from the special stages (which don't actually suck this time around) or the bonus stages, and the game provides plenty of opportunities to earn extra lives. All-in-all, this difficulty balancing system is a substantial improvement over the previous two games. Now to address my complaints (besides Sandopolis Zone) - which I have only three of. First - the time limit. These levels can sometimes push it in length, and you have only ten minutes to beat them. This isn't a major problem, however, as the levels aren't ''extremely long, and as long as you hit every checkpoint you see, dying to a Time Over won't be that much of a setback. Second - the visibility can, once in a while, be less than optimal. This, like the timer, though, isn't a major issue as it very rarely gets in the way. Finally, the collision can be a bit off sometimes. Now, this is extremely ''rare, but once in a while you may clip through a slope that goes up 90-degrees and most likely die, or even worse... softlock. On one playthrough, I clipped through a 90-degree slope in Carnival Night Zone Act 1 and died. That confused me, and I kept playing with no more issues... until Launch Base. Literally in the same exact playthrough, another glitch occured. In Launch Base Zone Act 2, I was about a minute into the level, when I spindashed up a 90-degree slope and clipped through the wall. Except this time I didn't die, and got stuck in the wall with no way out. This means that I had to wait ''nine more minutes ''for the timer to expire so I could continue. I could have reset, but I would have had to start Launch Base over from the beginning. This almost never happens, and it never happened to me since, however, so I don't consider this a major flaw by any means. It just means that I'll forever be paranoid about that specific spot in Launch Base Act 2, so that's great. Anyways, that's all. Let's talk about the difficulty. Difficulty I've said it earlier, but I'll say it again - this game's difficulty balancing is excellent due to the save feature and amazing level design. Since I've basically addressed this point, I'll instead discuss the bosses. They are actually a lot more challenging than earlier Sonic bosses, and are just as fun to take on..... ok, to be honest, these bosses really aren't hard at all. I mostly appreciate Sonic bosses for their creative designs, and despite how easy are, I still find them fun to fight. The only truly difficult boss fight in the game is the Red Eye, the boss at the end of Death Egg Act 1. This boss can be pretty troublesome to fight, but not to an obnoxious degree. The final boss in particular, The Great Robotnik Robo (you know, this thing), is a lot of fun. Even though it has no rings, it's a very good boss and is extremely intense. You can feel the tension of the situation when fighting the boss, due in part to the awesome music track . It's the perfect capstone to the classic Sonic era. Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Did I just say "awesome music track?" I did? Oh yeah, about that.... Soundtrack This game has an ''amazing soundtrack. It's a massive collaboration between eight composers, including Howard Drossin and Michael Jackson (yeah, seriously). Highlights include the File Select theme, Angel Island Zone Act 2, Hydrocity Zone act 2, Marble Garden Zone Act 2, Ice Cap Zone Act 1 & 2, Launch Base Zone Act 1 & 2, Flying Battery Zone Act 2, Lava Reef Zone Act 1, and the Final Boss theme. It really shows how, similarly to Rare with DKC2, Sega really cared about making Sonic 3&K something special. It's one of my top favorite Sonic soundtracks and my favorite Sega Genesis music, that's for sure. No, you know what, forget that. This is one of my absolute favorite soundtracks of any video game. I'm not kidding, it's that damn good. Graphics This game has the best graphics of any classic Sonic game, no, scratch that, it has the best graphics of any Genesis game. The spritework is impressive (especially for 1994), the zones (as I said before) all look distinct and memorable and have gorgeous graphics, and the backgrounds have tons of detail, depth, and a great use of parallax scrolling. Just like the first two games, Sonic 3&K features a cartoony artstyle that photorealistic games like Call of Duty or Battlefield simply can't keep up with. I know what you're probably saying - "the Earthworm Jim games look better because of their smoother animations and cartoonier artstyle." I do agree that Earthworm Jim had the better animations, but Sonic 3&K simply looks more detailed and colorful to me, and has way more interesting stage themes and the like. It also looks way better than any Disney game on the system for the same reasons, I find its artstyle way more appealing. Conclusion What can I say? This game is an excellent platformer and one of the best I've played so far. It's so damn good, in fact, that it just so happens to be one of my favorite games of all time. The music, graphics, controls, level design... pretty much everything about this game is fantastic. Even though it's not a perfect game, it does come awfully close, like the Mario, Donkey Kong, Spyro, and Banjo games often did. While I still like Super Mario World a little more in terms of 2D platformers, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a close second, easily the best 2D Sonic game ever made, my second-favorite Sonic game overall, and my favorite Sega Genesis game yet. So, are people right in being so hyped over this game? My answer is a resounding yes. If you haven't already, play this game. You have a few options I'll list, as usual - you can play it on actual Genesis hardware (how I played it), which, thankfully, isn't as expensive as some other consoles. The option I recommend for most people (for convenience, if nothing else) is either through an emulator or through Wii Virtual Console (VC), or Wii U VC. PC emulators are free, and you can create savestates with both (if you don't appreciate the save feature as it is). There's also dozens of collections like Sonic Mega Collection for 6th-gen systems, Sonic Classic Collection for DS, and Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for 7th-gen systems. It's even available for PC through Steam. However, whereever, whatever you do to play this game, do it. You won't regret it. Whew, what a mouthful. Anyways, next time we'll be looking at a few potential candidates - I might finally finish Super Mario Bros. 3 and offer a complete opinion on it, maybe I'll finally do that damn NSMBW review I promised a while ago now, or I'll possibly (small chance, but still on the table) do something I now only do on rare occasions - a movie review (DEAR GOD). Or, possibly-but-even-lower-chance-though-still-possibly, I may even get back into those old records I have and start writing... er, typing reviews of music that isn't from a video game (though probably not, just putting the idea out there), or even bring back an old series for another go (*cough* Fuck This Shit *cough*) Whatever the case, see all you guys next time. Category:Blog posts